Why would I treat everyone as my sister or brother and how would I do that?
Margaret Schenkman
The sixth principle of Heartfulness states Know all people as thy brethren and treat them as such. When I first paid attention to this principle, I thought to myself: “Well, at least this is one that I have well in hand. I have friends from many countries and from different cultures: Indians, other Asians, Europeans, and – of course – Americans. Really, I ‘get this one’.” Indeed, one year I used to travel each week to a town about an hour and a half away to work as a trainer with a group of Heartfulness meditators. If someone was starting the practice, I would stay overnight as it was helpful to meditate a few times over a few days to get the practice going quickly. It was only after some months that it dawned on me that here I was, one ‘white girl’ with eight ‘Indian guys’. I simply hadn’t noticed. They were ‘all my brothers’ even though I didn’t know most of them before we meditated together. So, as I said, I thought I had Principle 6 under control; I truly thought I lived this Principle. That was until I took a close look at myself.
Over time, I realized how little I had understood the real meaning of this principle. There were people with whom I felt comfortable; I treated them as brothers and sisters. But what about the people with whom I wasn’t comfortable? For example, what about people with very different political views or people who lived by very different social values? Yes – I accepted ‘all’ in the abstract, but did not know ‘everyone’ (each and every person) as a brother or sister. There were those that I simply ‘didn’t like’ – maybe because of the way they dressed, walked, talked, thought – so many different possible reasons. After taking a close look at my reactions to a wide variety of people I realized what a far way I have to go before I know all as my brethren in a spiritual sense.
The Heartfulness practice gave me several strategies and insights into how to develop a true sense of brotherhood/sisterhood. My spiritual teachers have taught that if I don’t like someone, look into myself because what I see in them is only a reflection of something that I don’t like in myself. The first step to accepting all is to understand what is it about me that causes this person to trigger non-acceptance? What is it that I need to change in me? As with many lessons on this path, it took quite a while to stop fighting this concept and start really looking at myself (rather than the other) when I am uncomfortable with a person or situation.
As I began to grapple with understanding what is it about me that causes my non-acceptance, I discovered that for me it often comes down to my feeling of being rejected and a deep discomfort at that rejection. For years I have watched my so-called ‘rejection samskaras[i] (impressions) dwindle more and more, but every once in a while, I am amazed at how well the rejection samskara still can rear its ugly head and strike back. One particular person, no matter what I did, was constantly ripping into me. My automatic reaction was to strike back. I was far from accepting this person – I certainly didn’t see this person as ‘brethren’. When I looked deeply into the situation, I realized that this person really hated them self, not me. I was simply a good proxy. And for my part, the ‘rejection’ was bringing out my worst side. What a lovely vicious cycle. This experience, along with many others on this path, has taught me that I can change no one but myself. If I reject the person who is challenging for me – in the end, I am really just rejecting myself.
Over time, I have come to appreciate that if I accept that all of us have within the same pure vibratory source (Principle 4), then to deny anyone – a colleague at work, my mother or father, any person in the meditation community – must really be to deny part of my ‘self’. Whew!!! That was a heavy one when I fully understood it. But what to do? How to see ‘all as one’. ‘all as me’, ‘me as him, her, them’?
Another strategy that I learned from the Heartfulness practice is based on Babuji’s recommendation to simply treat any feeling of non-acceptance like an ‘unwanted guest’, in other words, to pay it no mind. Babuji was the spiritual teacher who introduced the Heartfulness practice to the west in the1970s. He had another very simple prescription that also helps me: Just turn your head from here to there’. I have found that the more I can move my attention from ‘here’ (from focused on that which is bothering me) to ‘there’ (where ‘reality’ lies), the easier it is to treat all as brothers and sisters. The easiest way to begin to connect with ‘reality’ is to bring my attention back to my heart when I find myself focusing on that which is bothering me.
These strategies don’t mean that I now live in a ‘Pollyanna’ world, where anyone can do anything to me and I – the victim – will just ‘take it’. But I have discovered that when I say ‘No – this isn’t acceptable’ without personalizing it and without rejecting the other, I can avoid unreasonable situations without the overlay of hostility and anger. The vibration from me – the topic of Principles 4 and 5 – remains clearer and simpler. Without the heavy vibrations of hostility and anger, there is nothing against which the person can react. And that lack of vibratory reaction is the beginning of allowing us to live in harmony even when we disagree. That is the vibration of accepting all as brothers and sisters for which I strive.
[i] Samskara is the Sanskrit word for the impressions that accumulate due to our thoughts and actions. Oxford Dictionary, Apr 5, 2017: The word samskara comes from the Sanskrit sam (complete or joined together) and kara (action, cause, or doing). In addition to being generalized patterns, samskaras are individual impressions, ideas, or actions; taken together, our samskaras make up our conditioning.